A Simple Mess
by VividlyVisceral
Summary: "No. No, this isn't right. Why is this happening?" A career must deal with the realisation that death isn't as simple as he once thought. Written for Project PULL and the District 14 general prompt "Death".


**A Vivid Note: **While this piece wasn't written with him in mind (although I did do it for one of his prompts), I'd like to say Happy Birthday to a certain little Australian boy who is turning eighteen today. Happy Birthday Into, I hope you get plastered and hook up with lots of girls.

-and just to kill three birds with one stone- thereby making this even _less _special- this work is also a work for the D14 prompt 'Death' and my second entry for Project PULL.

Also, just briefly, I am aware that this is horrifyingly graphic, even for me. The reasoning behind this piece is that _death isn't beautiful. _I may be a little heavy handed in my execution, but I have fun.

Kiss-Kiss,  
>Vivid.<p>

**A Simple Mess**

I've always believed death to be quick and clean. Something final. It was always described in history books as such a simple act after all. A gun trigger is pulled, a hole is made and a person dies, or a knife is drawn, a blade dirtied and a person dies. It never really differed much from that.

"...ah... _ah..._"

So as I look down and see the small District 6 girl curling into herself on the dirt beside the cornucopia, my chest feels oddly tight. This isn't right. This isn't right at all.

She should be dead by now.

The spear had dug right into her gut. It had certainly made a hole, I made sure to. She had reached the cornucopia and I was the one who stopped her before she could run off with what's rightfully ours. But once I pulled the length of blade out, the hole turned into a gash. Bloodied flesh caught on the edge of my weapon, tangling and pulling at the girl's intestines. At first I had narrowed my eyes and waited for her screams to stop and her eyes to close, but the moment hasn't come. Her mouth continues to open and close, but her scream has become a soundless whimper, and her eyes fill with tears as her hands clutch at her ruined stomach.

Far to my right I can hear the roars of the other careers dealing with their prey. I allow myself a glance and see Tarquin throw his fist into the face of the District 8 boy who then crumples to the ground in a neat little heap. Feeling a twinge of worry, I wonder why my kill didn't go down so easily.

Staring back down at the girl, I consider leaving her here to join the fray with the others before it ends, but my instincts tell me to watch and make sure that she dies. It isn't really a question whether she will or not- the shredded pieces of her skin can tell me that much- but for some reason I can't shake the feeling that I need to see her die to make sure that I've done my job.

It looks painful what I've done to her. Her entire body shakes and the little girl's hands sort of fumble over the gaping hole I made in her. Maybe she thinks that if she presses it enough that the wound will heal enough for her to run away.  
>Irrational as that thought is, it sends a surge of panic through me. She can't run away. I need this kill. I need every kill I can get. The more tributes that I can get rid of the more sponsors I'll have by the time I really need them.<p>

To slay my fears, I raise the end of the spear up and jab it back down with all my might- this time pinning one of the hands of the girl into herself. She chokes and cries out a little, but not nearly as much as before. As I pull the spear away again, slowly, I'm horrified to see a trail of fleshy matter draw out with it.

No. No, this isn't right. Why is this happening? Heaving desperately on the ground, the tiny girl hunches over, eyes wide open in pain and saliva dripping out of her mouth and onto the dirt in shock. What is this? Why am I making such a mess of such an easy task? I've been taught how to do this- years of the Hunger Games has taught me how to do this. Death is quick. It shouldn't take this long-!

Frightened now, I begin to stab into her more. At first it's a slow pace, drawing and pulling out more viscera with every thrust, but it begins to quicken as I see that the girl's face hasn't stopped contorting in agony yet. Twisting and dragging my weapon through her lower-abdomen- I start hissing under my breath without realising-

"Die. Die. Die. Just die. Just die._ Just die-!_"

Wrenching the dirtied spear out of her stomach for the last time, I close my eyes tightly shut and aim the blade for the child's face, screaming these words in desperation.

"JUST _DIE_!"

There's a crunch of cartilage giving way to the pointed end of the spear, and the girl's rasping breaths for life disappear with my terror. Slowly opening an eye, I realise that I've begun gripping the spear so tightly that my nails have bent backwards from the intensity of my grip. There's blood dripping down my knuckles, and both my arms feel numb. In fact, I can't feel a thing at all.

My spear went through her cheek. The skin has split around the blade and is pulled down with the spear, but at least her eyes are closed to compensate for it. It looks final this way with them closed like that.

I try to breathe a sigh of relief, but my body has clammed up to the point where my lungs are refusing to operate as they usually should. I heave a little, letting go of the spear and running my hands over my face and through my hair, but this shell-shocked sensation just won't disappear.

Now that I see her, I can see that what I made wasn't a hole at all. Instead, it's a gaping chasm in the middle of her body. Leaking out of her fragile body is a thick slurry of blood and clear fluid, coating and pumping over an oddly shaped bundle of lumps and coils that her hands are still clutched tightly over.

Struggling to breathe, I close my eyes and reopen them, wishing that the scene will change itself, fix itself. There isn't meant to be this much of a mess. I've done it wrong. It's just meant to be a little hole, a little cut. Why is there all this... all this _stuff _coming out of her?

Eyes watering, I will myself to look at her one more time- only to jerk my gaze away in grief for the body that refuses to change.

"Whoah... you really did a number on her Champ'..."

Clapping a hand on my shoulder, Tarquin looks at me with an exhausted smile. I don't say anything. I wordlessly look down at the girl and feel my entire body tense up with discomfort.

How could I make a mess out of something so simple...?


End file.
